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EXCLUSIVE: TRAVIS H. BROWN ON HOW MONEY WALKS IN OR OUT OF YOUR STATE

As many Americans breath a sigh of relief now that April 15 has come and gone, many are still burdened with the filing of looming state income taxes. The weight of the state income tax burden has been put into real terms with a new user-friendly, interactive mapping tool called How Money Walks. How Money Walks(also available as a mobile app) exposes the movement patterns of personal income among the states, mapping out the money moving from states with high income tax rates to states with littler or no income tax. Pulling its data solely from the Internal Revenue Service records from 1995-2010, How Money Walks empowers citizens with the comparative knowledge of income migration from county all the way to the state level. In an exclusive interview with creator and author Travis H. Brown, he highlights how How Money Walks is applicable to all Americans:

Watchdog Wire: Your project How Money Walks maps the massive movement of $2 trillionin personal income taxes between the states from 1995-2010. How does $2 trillion walk and why did you select personal income tax as a useful metric for this migration?

Travis H. Brown: Personal income is our most mobile resource. Our disposable income, less the price placed upon work in the form of income taxes, feeds all of our potential to survive, consume, invest, and own assets. By making the Internal Revenue Service taxpayer file easy to navigate, the How Money Walks application allows taxpayers to see what has been happening within any community.